Today I decided to visit an atheist website. So I went to www.atheists.org to see what they talk about there. There are about 34 hyperlinks in the central frame of the from page of various current topics. To my surprise, a clear majority of those link were related in some way to religious activities.
So my question is, why do atheists spend so much time concerned with what non-atheist groups are doing? When I go to a Buddhist site or a Catholic site the vast majority of their front pages are dealing with topics related to what they are doing and not what non-Buddhist or non-Catholic groups are doing. I was expecting to find the band of atheists discussing and promoting their views, instead was more concerned with counterpoint to organizations or peoples of opposing viewpoints.
Always sends up a red flag for me when I see organizations doing mostly couterpointing of opposing views as it usually exhibits a level of extremism operating freely within the group. Is it because atheists have no views they hold in common except anti-views? This is a sincere question as I'm just not understanding why a group of people would organize as a lifestyle against something. Seems more productive to stress a lifestyle that is unique, has its own redeming attributes, something to be proud about and attract others instead of being so negative and anti this or that.
Disclaimer - I've not reviewed a bunch of sites out there and am going off of behaviors I see in this forum space and some major websites. I did note that some major websites had less anti-theist stuff (although still a lot), like www.atheistalliance.org, but just seemed to me that if the organization had the word atheist in its title it tended to have lots of religion counterpoint as its focus. If the organization did not highlight atheist in its title, like the Freethought Association of Canada or the European Humanist Federation, then these were more of what I expected, little religion counterpoint and expressing more of their own unique attributes instead. Anyway, found it curious.
So my question is, why do atheists spend so much time concerned with what non-atheist groups are doing? When I go to a Buddhist site or a Catholic site the vast majority of their front pages are dealing with topics related to what they are doing and not what non-Buddhist or non-Catholic groups are doing. I was expecting to find the band of atheists discussing and promoting their views, instead was more concerned with counterpoint to organizations or peoples of opposing viewpoints.
Always sends up a red flag for me when I see organizations doing mostly couterpointing of opposing views as it usually exhibits a level of extremism operating freely within the group. Is it because atheists have no views they hold in common except anti-views? This is a sincere question as I'm just not understanding why a group of people would organize as a lifestyle against something. Seems more productive to stress a lifestyle that is unique, has its own redeming attributes, something to be proud about and attract others instead of being so negative and anti this or that.
Disclaimer - I've not reviewed a bunch of sites out there and am going off of behaviors I see in this forum space and some major websites. I did note that some major websites had less anti-theist stuff (although still a lot), like www.atheistalliance.org, but just seemed to me that if the organization had the word atheist in its title it tended to have lots of religion counterpoint as its focus. If the organization did not highlight atheist in its title, like the Freethought Association of Canada or the European Humanist Federation, then these were more of what I expected, little religion counterpoint and expressing more of their own unique attributes instead. Anyway, found it curious.
